Next appears a Vertumnus. A fine figure of a philosopher. Volumnia and Veturius. A lady with a thin stola. A Venus. A boy of exquisite workmanship. A small statua togata.
In another part is a Faun of bronze, reclined, with his right hand lifted up, and his leg extended. This figure (as we were informed) was found accompanied with seven others of the same metal, which now stand in another chamber, _viz._ two young men in a running a posture; four females somewhat resembling vestals in their habit, excepting that all their heads were uncovered, and those of two of them were adorned with _vittæ_, or filets. Lastly, a young man of a small size, cloathed, with his arms somewhat extended.
There remains but one more figure to be taken notice of in this collection, _viz._ that of Serapis, with Cerberus at his right hand. Ancient writers[48] enable us to account for this appearance, by informing us, that Serapis (besides his other characters of Æsculapius, Sol, Osiris, and Jupiter) was accounted the same as Dis Pater, or Pluto. Upon this hypothesis none can doubt of the propriety of Cerberus’s attending upon this deity in the figure before us, as well as in three others given us by Montfaucon[49].
If we desire to enter into the mystical reason of this representation, we may learn it from Porphyry, _viz._ that Serapis[50], being the same as Pluto, had dominion over the evil dæmons; and that those beings were figured by a dog with three heads; meaning the dæmon subsisting in the three elements of water, earth, and air.
Give me leave to add further, that I find, by my journal, that upon viewing this figure, I took notice of a dissimilitude in the heads of it: but as it did not then occur to me, that they were ever expressed in any other form than the canine, I did not examine minutely into the difference: but, upon recollection, I am now inclined to think, that that monster might have the heads of three several animals in this piece, as he has in another, given us by [51]Montfaucon: which mode of exhibiting him was (according to that learned[52] antiquary) invented by the Egyptians; a circumstance not to be wondered at in a people, whose imagination teemed so plentifully with monstrous ideas of all kinds, as theirs is known to have done.